


Grounded

by nonelvis



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 20:19:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonelvis/pseuds/nonelvis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stranded on an asteroid, the Doctor and Donna each learn something about their friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grounded

**Author's Note:**

> My Tenth Doctor-era entry in [who_at_50](http://who_at_50.dreamwidth.org)'s 50th anniversary fanwork-a-thon-a-thon.

"She's stuck," the Doctor said, fingers porcupining his hair in frustration. "I don't have the part. I'll have to jury-rig something, no idea how long it'll take. Could be a few hours. Could be a few days."

In fact, it had already been a week on Terraformed Asteroid Beta-sub-three, pristine and practically sparkling with new plant and animal life, but not a single human to be found.

The Doctor still wasn't done.

* * *

He'd sworn there was plenty of food, and there was, for those seven days: dripping cartons of leftover kung pao chicken and dry-fried string beans. That gelatinous blue soup he loved but which smelled like stale liquorice to Donna, musty and plasticky as the inside of her mum's handbag. Baguettes, a wheel of Camembert, and a wedge of Wensleydale; a few boxes of biscuits, lemon creme and chocolate chip, which the Doctor munched mechanically while knitting wires together and swearing at the TARDIS console.

Near the end of the week, Donna found a cache of food blocks hidden in a filing cabinet. The foil wrappers, crinkled and fragile, crumbled beneath her fingers, but gnawing on a bar that tasted like roast dinner was still better than starving.

The block supply wouldn't last more than three days. Worse: they were out of tea.

"Doctor," Donna said, crouching next to him on the floor. "Doctor. We're nearly out of food."

"Not now, Donna, I'm busy." He licked the end of the wire, recoiled from a spark. "Ow."

She snatched the wire from his hand. "Give me that. No more wiring until we sort out the food."

"There's probably some more food blocks. Go look in the kitchen."

"I told you, we're almost out, and that machine you said they came from probably hasn't worked since the Ice Age. We need to ration them. And you drank the last of the tea."

"We can't be out of tea. Now, give me back that wire, I need it."

She slapped his hand when it reached for hers. "Aren't you listening? There's no more tea, and we're rationing the food. We'll have to start, I don't know, hunting or something. Foraging."

"I don't have time to forage, Donna. I have to fix the TARDIS."

"Fine." She tossed the wire back at him. "I'll sort this out. But you'd better get us flying again, or you'll bloody well be out there helping me gather nuts and berries for the next forty years."

"If that's not incentive enough to fix this, I don't know what is," he grumbled, and disappeared back under the console.

* * *

The TARDIS was kind enough not to hide the sports equipment room from her, and Donna found a fishing rod, tackle box, and ice chest. She hadn't been fishing in months – technically, she supposed, she hadn't been fishing _ever,_ but a few trips with her virtual husband in a virtual world were better than nothing, at least compared to starving. She at least remembered the basics: find a worm, or even a tuft of leaves. Bait the hook. Cast into the water. Wait and wait and wait.

They'd picnicked by a stream when they first arrived, and now that stream would have to supply their next meal. It was a hundred metres away and down a steep, grassy hill flitting with yellow- and blue-striped butterflies. The terraformed earth was rich and loosely packed, perfect for worms. Donna sifted the contents of the tackle box, looking for a small trowel and finally giving up with a clatter of lures tumbling back in the box. So much for her manicure. 

She found a worm beneath the first clump of grass she pried up. Baiting a hook had seemed much less … bloody disgusting, literally, when she'd had someone else to do it for her, but there was no husband nearby, virtual or otherwise, to do the job.

"Sorry, Mr. Wormy," she said, "but I've got to eat." When the worm was twitching on the hook, she shuddered, rinsed her fingers in the water, and cast the line.

At least the fishing was easy here on this new world, not yet populated with human colonists on their way from some Earth thousands of years in Donna's future. In an hour of fishing, she landed seven fat, shimmering trout, then swiftly beheaded and gutted them the way Lee had shown her. If only Mum could see her now, landing dinner out of nothing instead of chucking a ready meal into the microwave. Of course, she'd probably just chide Donna for her ruined fingernails and hands smelling of fish guts, but Granddad, anyway, would be grinning from ear to ear. As would Lee, wherever he was.

She fried up two of the trout that evening with a tangle of dandelion greens she'd found pockmarking the meadow all the way back up the hill. (Thank goodness for that month and a half in Girl Guides, before she'd tearfully quit due to her spectacular incompetence at everything other than dandelion identification and nail varnish application.) The Doctor shovelled the food into his mouth, mumbled about the TARDIS through bits of trout, and disappeared back under the console, leaving Donna with the dishes.

* * *

In the evenings, sometimes, waiting for the TARDIS to flush its flibber-flabber system (or at least, that's what it had sounded like), the Doctor would sit with Donna in the lounge while impatiently paging through recreational maths books, his mind clearly elsewhere. Donna surfed the galactic internet on a datapad, bookmarking where they'd go next once transport was up and running again. No more resort spas for a little while, but New Vegas looked like a lark – or maybe the tropical beaches of Lan Xhola with their glittering pink sand and sentient dolphins. Definitely a stop at Shan Shen for a few rounds of fizzy coconut drinks.

She tapped at the datapad and flicked her eyes in the Doctor's direction every now and then, just to make sure the silence didn't mean he'd slipped away without her noticing. Sometimes she found him angrily flipping a page back and forth. Sometimes he was quiet, brow furrowed, finally absorbed in his reading. And every now and then, more often than she suspected he'd admit, he was staring at her, just watching.

"What?" she finally said.

He blinked at her, opened his mouth slightly, then shut it again.

"You've been staring at me," she said.

"I most certainly have not."

"Ah, so I've been imagining all those looks. The thousand-yard stare, only right. At. Me."

His book closed with a thump. "You're definitely imagining things," he said. "You should get some rest. I've got to get back to the engine."

* * *

Two more days passed. Donna trekked down to the stream again, hauling back trout and dandelions and what she was fairly certain were under-ripe blueberries. They looked right, anyway, tiny and sea-green, blooming with violet blush, and the small bite she'd tasted was tart but didn't make her ill. Hopefully the Doctor would know for sure, assuming she could get him away from the console repairs long enough to confirm they wouldn't die of poison asteroid fruit.

She brought the datapad to the console room and sat cross-legged next to the Doctor, listening to him coo at the TARDIS, trying to cajole his ship into cooperation. There was a marked bite behind his words, threats as much as promises.

She sighed and flicked on the datapad. It might be a while.

_Dear Granddad,_

_I don't know why I'm writing you. There's no postman to deliver it halfway across the galaxy, and the only man who could's right here next to me, banging on his spaceship with a spanner. He's been doing it for an hour. You wouldn't believe my headache._

_We're on an asteroid, but it's been all done up like the most beautiful park you've ever seen. Trees everywhere and grass and birds. Pretty as a picture. I wish you could see it._

_Granddad, there's no point in beating around the bush, and you know me – not like I do that anyway. We're stuck. I don't know if I'll make it home again._

_I always knew something might go wrong traveling with the Doctor, but I've got faith in him. So much faith. I know he'll fix things. He'd better, I really want to see –_

"Donna, could you pass me the rotary drill?" A hand emerged from below the console, fingers opening and closing, and was finally followed by the rest of the Doctor. "You're supposed to be helping me. What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Donna flipped the datapad against her chest. Let him try to look at it now. "Nothing important," she finished, and handed him the drill.

* * *

The afternoon of Donna's third fishing trip, she opened the TARDIS doors, stepped outside, and was soaked in seconds. Right, then. An auspicious beginning to yet another expedition she shouldn't have had to make.

"Almost there, Donna!" the Doctor called cheerfully from beneath the console.

"About bloody time," she grumbled, squelching towards the wardrobe room in search of a hooded mac and a pair of wellies.

It must have been raining for hours already; each step towards the stream sank into a matted patch of grass and mud. Rain dripped from her hood brim into her eyes. Good thing she hadn't bothered to wear makeup today; not as if anyone other than the Doctor were around to see her face anyway.

Come to think of it, how long would it be before someone else saw her face? The Doctor hadn't said a word about when the colonists were due, assuming he even knew that in the first place, not to mention whether people would settle anywhere near the TARDIS. Fishing, gathering berries, and dreams of travel to tropical beaches and planets with migratory mountains might be all Donna had left now.

No. She wouldn't give up hope. The Donna who'd first met the Doctor might have; the Donna her mother liked to believe she knew would certainly have; but this Donna, the one who'd doggedly hunted down every presumably alien conspiracy theory she could – disappearing bees, for pity's sake – this Donna wouldn't give up on her friend. This Donna would keep marching towards that stream, and would put fishing skills she'd learned in a virtual reality to good use, and would choose to believe that the Doctor would find them a way out of their current situation.

She sped up. The faster she got to the water, the faster she'd bring back dinner, and the faster she'd find out whether the Doctor really had sorted things with the TARDIS.

... or, the faster she'd fall down the hill.

It was a stray tree branch that set her off. Probably it had broken and been blown to the meadow during the rainstorm, but no matter how it had arrived, it was rounded and wet and slick and Donna's foot went straight out from under her when she stepped on it. She stumbled forwards, then tumbled eccentrically through mud and grass, clawing for the ground when she could, but instead finding herself rolling that much faster.

She didn't stop until she reached the shallow flats next to the stream, and by then her breath had rushed from her like a pinprick shattering a balloon. She closed her eyes and lay in the mud, sideways and still.

* * *

There was a voice: male, probably; muffled by the rain, definitely. It might have been calling her name.

Donna's eyes fluttered open. She smelled dirt, musty and metallic. Oh, right: her cheek was planted firmly in the mud.

"Donna? Donna, where are you?" The voice was closer now, and of course it was the Doctor. Who else would it have been on their private little asteroid?

"Doctor?" she called back, weakly at first. Slowly, she started to push herself up off the ground, bracing her hands in the mud. Disgusting, but necessary. "Doctor! I'm here!"

She made it as far as hands and one knee before collapsing with a shriek. A ribbon of pain was wrapped tight around her ankle. She tried to get up one more time, pushing harder off her hands, and managed to wobble to her feet – or foot, rather, since she immediately discovered that any weight on her left ankle was enough to set off the pain again.

"I fixed the TARDIS, Donna! Come on!" The Doctor, still several metres above Donna on the slope, blinked at her. "What are you doing down there?"

"Yoga, what does it look like? Downward dog _stuck in the mud, you prawn._ Now get down here and help me; I think I've twisted my ankle."

Even his fingers gently prodding at the ankle caused a throb of pain. "I think you've done more than twisted it, Donna," the Doctor said, "but don't worry, we'll sort it out back in the TARDIS. Come along, lean on me now, we'll hop our way up the hill."

" _Hop?_ Do I look like I'm capable of hopping right now?"

"A very slow hop? ... All right, never mind, just try to put as little weight on your foot as possible."

They side-stepped up the hill in increments, pain shuddering through Donna's ankle and shin. Bloody stupid stick, and bloody stupid her for tripping on something so bloody stupid. She winced every time the foot touched the ground, and not just because it hurt.

At the top of the hill, she stumbled, plunging back into the mud. Rain chucked down hard and steady on her head, tiny pellets so thick and fast they might as well have been lead shot.

"Come on, Donna, you can rest back at the TARDIS."

"Do you seriously think I'm resting? That I've just decided to take a nice kip in the mud?"

He reached for her waist to help pull her up, but she shied away. "This wouldn't have even happened if you hadn't got us stuck here!" she yelled. "Or if you'd taken your turn finding us something to eat! We'd have starved if it wasn't for me! So if I'm resting, your Time Lordship, it's only so I can can kick your skinny arse later."

"And who was going to fix the TARDIS? You?"

"Stow it. You could have at least thanked me once in a while."

"I did. I must have. ... didn't I?"

"Yes, of course, I'm just lying here in the mud yelling at you for the fun of it."

Rain streamed down his face and plastered that ridiculous rooster-tail hair of his into a flat and drippy mess. His face sagged, soggy and pathetic. He looked ready to be hung on the line to dry.

"Donna, I'm sorry," he said. "You're right; I've been so wrapped up in the TARDIS I didn't even think."

"You're damned right you didn't think." She stretched a hand towards him, letting him pull her up, and winced as she let her ankle bear weight again. "But you're my ticket out of here, so we'll talk about what you owe me later. Right now I'm thinking a nice, sunny beach; a well-oiled masseur named Armando; and the world's biggest piña colada."

"I'll see what I can do."

They limped silently towards the TARDIS. It was only a few metres away by now, but each step Donna took grew shorter and shorter. She felt her leg stiffening like concrete, pain rippling in sludgy waves from ankle to knee.

When they finally reached the door, she turned, grabbed the Doctor by his tie, and said, "World's. _Biggest._ Piña. Colada."

She sucked in a breath, wheezed it out like an accordion as her ankle crossed the TARDIS threshold. A hundred tiny needles jabbed behind her eyes. 

The TARDIS floor grating was sharp-edged but cool. Donna slumped on it gratefully, and then she passed out.

* * *

She woke smelling dirt again, this time without the sharp scent of iron; this was acid and sweet, citric and herbal, wafting towards her in a steamy cloud.

Tea. Tea they hadn't had twenty-four hours ago.

There was a pea-green mug of it on the nightstand beside a plate of buttered toast, and the Doctor seated nearby in a side chair, quietly paging through a thick, leather-bound book. Donna stretched slowly, tenderly flexing her sore leg muscles and discovering her left ankle immobile in what felt like a stiff casing.

She also realised, equally slowly, that she was in her pyjamas.

"You _undressed_ me." She clutched the covers to her chest. 

"Had to. Couldn't get the cast on otherwise. Besides, I didn't think you'd want to sleep in your clothes; you were soaked." Another page flip. "Donna, I am a doctor, you know. The title's not just for show."

She made a sour face at him and reached for her tea. Two sugars. He'd remembered.

"Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself, because one free look's all you get."

"I assure you, Donna, this was purely professional. Although," he added, eyebrow barely curving upwards, "for a human, you've awfully nice –"

"Hold it right there, mister." She reached for the toast. The proper amount of butter, too. "How long will I be in this thing?" She waved her hand, gesturing at her cast.

"Not long. Another day or two. You fractured your ankle, but the bone regenerator took care of that; we're just holding everything in place a bit longer."

"Good, because don't think I've forgotten about that beach, or that drink." She crammed the last chunk of her toast triangle in her mouth and reached for another. Suddenly, she was starving. Probably her body healing up, or maybe that she'd slept through dinner. "Are you going to sit there and stare at me again? Because that's just weird, even for you."

The Doctor closed the book and scooted closer to her. "Donna," he said. "About that other day in the lounge."

She sipped her tea, letting steam curl around her nose. It smelled heavenly, like that loose-leaf stuff he'd picked up in ancient China.

"I _was_ watching you," he said. "I was wondering if this was going to be my life for the next fifty years. You staring at me. Me staring at you. Trapped here with no one else to talk to and nothing else to do until we both went completely, one-hundred-percent bonkers. It's happened before, you know. Ask Martha about 1969, that night I spent playing the drum solo from ‘Inna-Gadda-da-Vida' on the bongos in the nude. I think she's still traumatised ... neighbours probably still are, too.

"And I'm sorry, Donna, because I was wrong. I didn't think about how you must have felt trapped here with me, and I didn't think about everything you've done to hold us together. You're my friend, Donna. You're my best friend. And I was wrong not to treat you like that."

Donna put the mug back on the side table. The Doctor drooped in his chair. Even his hair looked wilted.

"Yep, you were a right idiot," Donna said, and reached for his hand. "But you fixed me up, and you went all the way back to the Tang Dynasty just to make me a cup of tea, didn't you?"

"You like it?"

"Of course I do. Did you remember the moon cakes?"

"In the kitchen," he said, smiling.

"Good boy. Might even be willing to forgive you someday."

"I should hope so, considering where we're headed next." He rose, tucking the book under his arm. "Lan Xhola, wasn't it? I'm told the locals make an excellent piña colada."

"Definitely forgiven, then." She snuggled back under the covers. Tea and toast were all well and good, but lazing about in bed was better. "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks for fixing the TARDIS. I'm not ready for nude bongo-playing. In fact, I'm not sure the world is ready for nude bongo-playing."

"You don't know what you're missing, Donna."

"Think I can live with that," she said.

The door shut so quietly she barely heard the snick of its latch. Donna yawned and closed her eyes. _Dear Granddad, ignore that other letter. He drives me mental, that one, but he always comes through in the end._

She drifted off to sleep with dreams of home.


End file.
